


The Difference Between Understanding and Acceptance

by Prussan



Series: Queer Mash [4]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Basically everyone is mostly chill, Canon Typical Attitudes, Crossdressing, Crossdressing Klinger, Except Frank Burns who is always a dick, Gen, Gender non-conforming Klinger, Genderqueer Character, Genderqueer Klinger, Klinger's Many Uncles, Margaret only makes a brief appearance, Mrs Klinger, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Klinger, One of Klinger's Aunts, Period atypical acceptance?, Queer MASH, Queer Themes, Questioning, The Klinger Collection, gender nonconformity, gender variance, no chickens were harmed in the making of this fic, queer, questioning gender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 12:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17508389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prussan/pseuds/Prussan
Summary: "He. There had always been something about it which was just- It was like brushing his faux fox stole against the direction of the nap, it just wasn't…right."Klinger thinks about how he ended up in the middle of Korea, wearing a dress, black pumps and silk stockings.





	The Difference Between Understanding and Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this, but I swear, if I sit on it any longer it's going to hatch, and then I will have a much maligned fowl to deal with.

Klinger had always wanted out of the army, but he'd have been lying if he said he didn't have ulterior motives for his section 8 capers. _He_. There had always been something about it which was just- It was like brushing his faux fox stole against the direction of the nap, it just wasn't… _right_.  
  
And if it weren't for the war, he wouldn't have even thought about it. He just would have continued on, not thinking about that slight discomfort that he sometimes felt. He'd have stayed in Toledo, with Laverne and his loud, vivacious Lebanese family with too many uncles. He'd have been happy, mostly.  He thought about how he ended up here, in an army field hospital in the middle of Korea, in the middle of a _war_ , wearing a flattering A-line dress, black pumps and stockings.  
  
It had started, ostensibly, with a letter. The Draft letter, which ordered him to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Klinger had just been promoted to soldier.  
  
More accurately, it had started with a performance that Klinger had seen on the way _to_ Fort Dix. He had a night to kill in Trenton before the bus to the base in the morning, and he'd stumbled across a club in which a group of female impersonators called the Powder Box Revue were performing. The performance was outrageous and wonderful, and the costumes were beautiful. He thought about how brave the performers must have been, to dress up in women's clothes and perform for people, across the country. And then he promptly forgot about it. At least for a little while.  
  
It was apparent to Klinger after only a few weeks in basic that the military did not agree with him, and he doubted that this police action in Korea would be any better. Resolving to get out, however he could, Klinger's mind came back to the performance he'd seen in that dingy club in Trenton, this time, bringing with it the memories of stories told to him by his many uncles as a child. An idea blossomed in Klinger's mind. As soon as he could he wrote three letters to three uncles. He wrote Uncle Zak, to ask him about the wedding dress that prompted his discharge during WW1, Uncle Gus, who'd managed to avoid service all together by taking on the identity of “Aunt Gussie”, and Uncle Bob, that was, the Uncle Bob who'd worn stockings to get out of the Navy during WW2 (not the one who'd gotten mixed up in the Great Toledo Payola Scandal).  
  
Klinger hadn't actually really thought about it before, but he had a lot of uncles who had, at one point, crossdressed. Growing up the stories had just seemed like the sort of wild, tall tales that every kid hears from their zany uncles, but the stories had a new significance to Klinger now. It seemed that getting out of a war by dressing in women's clothes was practically a Klinger family tradition. And who was he to jibe with a Klinger family tradition?  
  
To say that basic combat training was hard was an understatement, but the letters return from his uncles gave Klinger hope. None of them sent him any of their pieces, although each promised he would. Klinger figured that his many wise uncles knew that a care package of silk stockings probably wouldn't fly at Fort Dix. As it was, Klinger wouldn't have had the confidence or freedom to start dressing in women's clothes during basic. Everything was so stringently controlled, all individuality quashed. Coming from such a vibrant family, it was all Klinger could do to keep his head above water, and just get through it.  
  
When Klinger's Military Occupation Speciality came through, he breathed a sigh of relief, thanking his lucky stars that it said medical corpsman, instead of any designation that amounted to _cannon fodder_. After weeks of basic, he was then shipped off to advanced medical training, before being shipped out to Korea.  
  
Klinger had made the decision not to tell his mother about Korea when he wrote his uncles - she knew that he'd been drafted, but not knowing what his MOS and future might hold, he instead decided to tell her that his intake was being kept at Fort Dix, as reserve, to help run the place while the more experienced men went to Korea. Of course, he had to tell his uncles what was really going on, but he implored them not to tell his mother. They agreed that it would be best to spare Aaqilah from the worry of Max being in a war zone.  
  
Klinger had wondered what to do, in light of his newly awarded speciality, but, once again, decided against telling his mother. After all, he might not end up in one of those relatively safe and cushy army hospital units. He might get attached to a unit as part of a Battalion Aid Station, right up close to the action. No, he didn't want her to worry.  
  
So he went to Korea, and found himself at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. He wrote his mother, sending her one of the dozens of snaps he'd taken at Fort Dix, and his uncles as soon as he arrived. And in true army fashion, he received no post for weeks. Of course, after those first few weeks Klinger would never again think of a MASH has being cushy and relatively safe. On the first day, and every day that followed, he was subjected to nauseating mess tent fair. On day three there was sniper fire in the compound. After day four, Klinger lost track, because a push to take some hill or another meant that the 4077 was inundated with casualties, and Klinger had never seen so much green ( _fatigues_ ) and red ( _blood_ ) and white ( _scrubs_ ). All Klinger knew was that he had to get _out_.  
  
And then the first care package arrived. Uncles Zak, Gus and Bob had somehow coordinated to send him one mega parcel, filled with chiffon scarves and silk stockings, a plaid knife pleat skirt and matching blouse, a fascinator and some costume jewellery - some of which he was pretty sure belonged to his Auntie Imelda (and he hoped for Uncle Bob's sake she never found out).  
  
The pieces were a godsend, and Klinger didn't wait long to put them to good use. The very next day, in fact, he tried on the skirt, finding it to be a little too big in the waist, and the blouse, which gaped slightly. He looked down and smiled. Without any shoes, he had to wear his standard issue boots, and he looked absurd. Adding a pair of Auntie Imelda's clip on earrings, he set out for the mess tent.  
  
It was actually harder than he expected it would be. Everyone stared. Some of the other corpsmen wolf whistled and jeered. The nurses tittered. As he passed the swamp, Captain Pierce tossed a cheesy pick-up line his way, while Captains McIntyre and Jones complimented him on his ensemble. He kept his head held high. Until he ran into the formidable Major Margaret Houlihan.  
  
"What in God's name do you think you're wearing, Soldier?" She demanded in an imposing, no-nonsense tone, arms folded across her chest.  
  
Klinger looked down. It was now or never, "My uniform, Major. What else would I be wearing?" He answered, deadpan.  
  
She put him on report for a fortnight for his lip, ordered him to change into his uniform, and assured him she'd be raising his unbecoming conduct with the CO (Klinger felt sorry for Lt Col Henry Blake). Not wanting to raise the Major's ire again, he did change, but he felt sure that if he just kept it up he'd get a section 8 discharge for sure.  
  
(As nervous as he had been, there had also been a liberating sort of freedom to wearing the skirt and blouse, but he tried not to think about that.)  
  
And thus began the Klinger Collection. He wore dresses, got put on report, ordered size 12 pumps from the Sears catalogue, got his hands on a WACS uniform and sassed General Barker. He learnt to sew beyond buttons and darning, and begged the nurses to buy fabric for him when they went on R&R in Seoul or Tokyo, so he could start making clothes that actually fit.  
  
The strange thing was, even the pret-a-porter ladies wear _fit_ even when it didn't. He couldn't really understand it, but there was just something about women's clothing that made him feel more comfortable in his own skin than he ever had in his life.  
  
He thought again about the female impersonators, he'd seen so long ago, half a world away in New Jersey, pretending to be women. Klinger didn't want to be, or even pretend to be a woman, of that he was certain. There was just something about wearing a stylish cocktail gown, with matching shoes and gloves that felt _right_. Like he could breathe, in spite of the food, the casualties, the _war_.  
  
Sometimes, he wondered why he didn't stop when it became obvious that he wasn't getting that discharge. He tried pulling crazy stunts (most memorably, attempting to literally fly the coop with a homemade hang glider), but it never seemed to work. He had held out hope, that after Henry's death, their new regular Army CO would discharge him before he could even say "knife pleat skirt".  
  
Unfortunately for Klinger, things didn’t pan out that way. So he found himself wondering, from time to time, why he continued to add to and wear the Klinger Collection. It took him a long while to realise why. Radar had once described it as a personal "war against the war" - the way they each dealt with the trauma and stress and deplorable conditions. There was a rightness in women's clothes that Klinger hadn't known before, and, ironically, it kept him _sane_.  
  
For Klinger, frocks and heels and frilly things were an armour. He owned, in the Collection, the most luxurious armour in the 4077, all silk and satin, chiffon and faux fur. There was something about layers of fabric and a pair of heels that made him feel completely untouchable. Of course, that didn't make him bulletproof.  
  
He was just as scared and lonely, and homesick as anyone else at the 4077, but there was a comfort, a _rightness_ that Klinger felt when wearing a pair of pearl earrings, a dress, a brassiere, that no-one, not even the North Koreans and Chinese, could take away from him.  
  
It came at a cost though. As accepting as people were at MASH 4077, there were still small hurtful comments that thrown at Klinger every so often. The people here were good, compassionate, understanding people, and more than a few of them were screwballs in their own right.  
  
But there were always little comments. Major Burns had always called him a freak or a pervert. Others sometimes thought that he was unreliable and irresponsible because of his frequent attempts at a section 8, and his attire. But Klinger had never shirked his duties, especially when there was wounded involved, and with his frocks and pumps, he felt he could take anything in his stride.  
  
And as hard as it could be at times, Klinger knew these comments weren't born out of cruelty, how could they be when everyone was just as confused and homesick and scared as he was? More often than not, they were born out of a lack of understanding.  
  
Klinger had come to realise that there was a fine, but important distinction between understanding and acceptance. Everyone at the 4077 had their own method for coping, and no-one truly seemed to _understand_ anyone else's way of coping, but they were always willing to _accept_ it.  
  
Hawkeye drank to excess and slept around. BJ drank and played pranks. Major Houlihan increasingly shut herself off to the point where she seemed hard and distant and cold. Major Winchester belittled everyone with his over-inflated sense of superiority, and listened to music. Radar had his teddy and his menagerie of animals. Colonel Potter had Sophie and his paintings.  
  
Klinger couldn't even begin to fathom how or why any of these things helped. All he knew was that they did. And he knew that everyone else felt the same way about the Klinger Collection. (Hell, most days _Klinger_ didn't even understand why the Collection helped him cope. He wished he did, he wished he could understand this _thing_ better, just for his own sake, but he didn't and couldn't, and in the end, just having the Collection in his war against the war was enough.)  
  
There was a difference between understanding and acceptance. And nowhere was that more apparent than at the 4077. People didn't always understand why Klinger dressed the way he did, but the people of the 4077 were always willing to accept it, and that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The Powder Box Revue was a real troupe of drag queens that travelled and performed across the USA in the 1950s. For the purposes of this fic, the timeline has been fudged slightly - The Powder Box Revue wasn’t formed until 1953, but they were one of the few travelling drag troupes of the 1950’s I could find information about. I have no idea if they ever actually visited Trenton, NJ or any of the Northeastern states - although I have found records of them performing at the Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans for several weeks. The Powder Box Revue themselves were based on a very popular and long running drag troupe called the Jewel Box Revue, which performed from 1939 until 1975. 
> 
> I found reports that said that during the Korean war Fort Dix served draftees from the Northeastern states. Ohio is, of course, part of the Midwest, so Klinger technically should have been sent somewhere like Camp Atterbury, however it's stated in S7E26 The Party, that Klinger was at Fort Dix. I've decided to stick with this for two reasons - 1) there's only so much retconning of canon inconsistencies an author can do and 2) I found lots of records of people from all over the States being sent to all sorts of bases for their Basic Combat Training (I found one guy from Toledo, Ohio who got sent to Camp Polk, Louisiana!)  
> To paraphrase a friend, “When under the pump, they'd send draftees wherever there's space.”
> 
> I have no idea if Uncle Bob who got out of the Navy in WW2 is the same person who got mixed up in the payola scandal. Both of these things are just listed under the single heading of “Uncle Bob” on the Monster MASH Wikia, however for the purposes of this fic, I decided to riff on the concept of Klinger's Many Uncles, by giving Klinger two Uncle Bobs.
> 
> I made up a name for Klinger's mother, because she's not given one in canon. I chose the name Aaqilah because the internet reliably informs me that it means “wise” which, of course, is a nod to the fact that Klinger's mother knew he was in Korea, in spite of his deception. There was no special significance to Auntie Imelda's name, although now that I've googled it, it apparently means “powerful fighter” which actually seems entirely consistent with what I've written. I have no idea how accurate either of these meanings are.
> 
> I did a lot of digging on the minutiae of the draft and basic training and even the military post system during the Korean war. I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, but I’ve almost certainly got stuff wrong. For someone who adores MASH so dearly, I am _not_ a fan of the military, but I try not to let this influence my writing, because I feel that accuracy is important.


End file.
